"The ancestral blue of my Land,
Adorning the windows and doors
Of fishermen’s homes on the sand
Since the remote times of the Moors..."

Those blue trimmed houses -especially the one in the middle- remind me a little bit of the houses in some parts of my native country. I didn't expect it in Finland. It's interesting.

So I was right to be surprised with those houses... :) Thank you very much for your comment on my photos. Coming from you it's flattering. And I must thank you a second time, because I didn't know Flickr before you put a link to it (photos of the fire in the railway warehouse). Now I have a place to put my own photos. ;)

These "Finnish" houses look lovely to me but now I wonder, how do typical Finnish houses look like? Mostly I see very big square buildings in beautiful colours. In my opinion most people of Helsinki live in apartment buildings whereas you have so much more space then we in the Netherlands. I just can find 3 photo's of "houses" in Helsinki on your site. 16 Juli '03; Looks like summerhouses to me. 22 October '03; very lovely street with colourful houses. And 22 october '04; more like the Dutch way. Frontdoor on the street and I hope a garden in the back. Only our houses are build of stone.
Sorry for my long comment but this photo and your comment made me curious and Cynthia what is your native country?

Hello, Gré,
My native country is Portugal. I don't live there, though. I live in Slovenia for the moment. Although I speak Portuguese, my first language is French. Those houses in Niklas' pictures look a bit like the houses of the Alentejo, Estremadura and Ribatejo regions in Portugal. Houses there are usually small, blue or yellow-trimmed, and have whitewhashed walls. It's very pretty. You can have a quick look here, if you like: http://www.cm-obidos.pt/custom/vpage.aspx?pg=fotos_vila_ruas. This is in the medieval town of Obidos. ;)

Hello Cynthia,
I have actually visited Obidos sometimes in 1979 and I loved it. The house in the middle of Niklas's picture isn't typical for Finland at all, as the old Finnish houses were mainly wooden ones. That's one reason for there being so few of them left. They were distroyed in many big fires, sometimes actually protected buildings are suspected to have been burned down by their greedy owners, so that they could build new buildings on the valuable site.

I'm glad you liked Obidos, Helen. And thank you for those informations on old Finnish houses. :)

Helen
Also thanks for the information about the wooden houses. Was there also a very great fire around 1900 that destroyed a great part of Helsinki? It's somewhere in my mind but I can't find it back in my books.
Cynthia
Obidos looks lovely in the sun. The combination of the white and the colours and all those beautiful flowers against the houses. Beautiful!
Niklas
I looked at the Igglo website. Again much apartmentbuildings but also beautiful houses! Vallila has many lovely streets, I found your Virtaintiestreet. Do you have more names of districts with houses? Maby some new built houses in a new district? You have to search on names of districts and I don't know any names.
Thanks a lot, groetjes.

A great part of Helsinki burned down in a great fire in 1808, during the war between Sweden and Russia. At the end of that war Sweden lost Finland to Russia. Until then Finland had been a part of Sweden. As the fire had destroyed great parts of Helsinki the city centre was built in Empire style.

Gré:
If you are interested in Finnish houses, try www.etuovi.com (Finnish brokers)
Some words that you will need:
HAKU = SEARCH
Alue = region, Aluetarkennus = more specific area
Asunto = dwelling, home. Asuntotyyppi = Type of dwelling
Rivitalo = terraced house, Omakotitalo = one-family house
HAE (in the lower right corner) = Search!

Helen
Sorry, I was wrong for 100 years but this fire explains to me why Helsinki has not a historical town-view in my atlas. Also why you don't see very old smaller buildings. But the empire style is very beautiful, its very special.
I looked at the Etuovi site, that gave me a good image of the new Finnish houses, most of them very stylish. Thanks!